Below you’ll find answers to the most common questions you may have surrounding Eleven Network.

To commence the process of registration we need a completed application form, a business plan and CVs for those with a controlling function in the business. This enables us to begin some background checking, including Credit Check, Referencing, Criminal Record Check and FCA Check. This normally takes 30 days.

From this point the application usually takes a further 30-60 days, during which time the contract and FCA Form A can be concluded. However, you won’t be able to start trading until your system software is built for you, which can take 6-8 weeks from signing the contract. If you need any extras, e.g. E-trade, then this can take additional time. Therefore, in total we would suggest that it can take between 8-12 weeks in total until you’re authorised to start trading, but it can be quicker if everything is prepared upfront.

We have an initial 18-month contract, which is then replaced by a rolling three-month commitment agreement. We want to keep our Appointed Representatives on board for as long as possible, but we do not want to tie them in unwillingly. If people move on as their business grows and develops in new directions, then that is fair enough.

The only time we would look to draw a line through a contract is if people have been less than competent or persistently non-compliant in their working practices, or their personal circumstances have changed and they’ve picked up, for example, a CCJ for reasons more serious than a disputed parking ticket.

Not really. Departing ARs need to ensure that they leave either with all client debts paid or, at least, taking responsibility for the timely payment of such premiums shortly after departure. Given that, then we’re happy to participate in agency transfers away from us or, in rare circumstances, and if remunerated, to retain some clients until renewal but not to invite renewal when the time comes.

However, there may be some instances where some of your clients may not be able to transfer mid-term. If they are, for example, EDI, E-trade or on a closed Eleven Scheme and at mid-term, they’ll have to transfer at renewal.

There’s nothing set in stone but there is a basic threshold of viability that any broker has to cross if the business is going to be worthwhile for them, let alone for their network.

We understand it takes time to build up a broking firm and that restrictive covenants may make things a little slow to start with. However, we would expect those that are going to make a go of it to produce £375,000 of gross written premium by the end of year three. There are always exceptions and where, for example, insurance is a secondary business then the gross written premium may be lower.

The bottom line is that if you’re running an economically viable business then we’ll be here to support you. If you’re struggling to do that then we’ll do everything we can to help you.

Eleven is not a sales manager and there is no prescription made about where business is placed or about what type of business is placed. That’s up to you. We’ve arranged preferential deals with some insurers but if you don’t want to use them that’s fine. We’re here to help you do business, not to tell you what to place and where to place it.

We prefer you to have a certain level of insurance-based qualifications from the CII – at least a Certificate in Insurance (CERT CII). However, years of experience is the crucial part.

If you don’t currently have this, we’ll accept a minimum of 5 years’ experience in the industry. However, we do ask that you achieve a minimum of a CERT CII (as per the contract and business agreement) within 3 years of joining and, preferably, within the first 18 months or so. We can be flexible about this with the ‘more mature’ applicant coming with 25+ years of relevant experience.

No, not initially. All new members get up to two days of free training from Eleven on the use of our systems. We also provide free renewals and reports training later.

If you need additional training, then there may be some cost involved, depending on what and where it is. However, we only ever seek to cover our own costs. Training is not a profit centre within Eleven.

It really depends on how you like to work and how much capital you have. We’re trying to reproduce the situation of 30 years ago when people started their businesses from scratch and turned them into some of today’s big hitters.

We want to foster that spirit of entrepreneurship in the broker market and so, whether starting from a back bedroom, using a spare room in another office or renting office space from the likes of Regus, we’re happy to support you. With flexible office space, however, we do advise that you don’t commit yourself to their telephone system, unless it features call-recording.

So long as you take a professional approach, it matters not a lot where you start from.

Yes. If not a limited company then we need you to establish a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP). There are three main reasons why we insist on this.

1. It creates a formal structure, which provides a good framework for future growth and sets an ambitious ethos from the outset.
2. It means published accounts are readily available, which helps us manage all our Appointed Representatives more easily.
3. It allows us to put our Appointed Representatives on credit watch and find out about things like County Court Judgments that have been made against them.

It is not about playing Big Brother, we just want to play fair, keep everyone on a level footing and make sure we don’t have the wool pulled over our eyes.

Yes, you do. However, the good news is that this will only take a matter of days. The Information Commissioner’s Office will sort it out for you: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/register/. In short, you’ll be put on a register detailing who you are, the sort of information you hold on clients and what you use it for. It really is nothing to worry about.

There is also some mandatory compliance training, which covers Data Protection and the GDPR, through our online learning system.

To start trading you’re going to need a computer, a broadband connection, a printer, a scanner, letterhead stationery, compliment slips and business cards.

It’s then a good idea to get a website, we offer a solution for new brokers to create a modern and fully optimised website from a template, free of charge, you will just need to budget in for hosting, which we can also assist you with. In total, the basic tools of the trade, along with some initial investment in marketing, should not cost more than £5,000.

A breakdown of our Marketing Support Services can be read here.

The procedures we have put in place form the bedrock of our compliance offering and so long as you follow them, you’ll remain on the right side of the Financial Conduct Authority. In the first quarter, our Broker Development and Inspection Managers visit new Appointed Representatives regularly just to make sure you’re getting everything in place and to help where they can.

Thereafter, visits are usually quarterly. We’ll check the processes you’re using and tell you what’s new from a compliance perspective. Each Appointed Representative is then audited remotely by our compliance auditors, giving each business an ongoing MOT and keeping them within the letter of the law.

Excess is set for ARs at £25,000 unless you’re contributing to the mutual excess buy back fund, in which case the excess is reduced to £15,000.

You will have to foot the bill if it turns out that the mistake was yours. Equally, if the error is down to Eleven, then we will pay. If we’ve both contributed, then we split it.

The Acturis broking system that you’ll be using is a Microsoft Windows-based package, which means that you won’t be able to use Mac hardware or a Mac operating system for your day-to-day broking. If you don’t have a PC running Windows 10 then you’ll need to buy one before we can install the necessary software and get you up and running.

The minimum specification of PC hardware to run the Acturis system is as follows:

• At least an Intel Core i5 or equivalent AMD processor
• 8Gb RAM (Operating Memory)
• 256Gb SSD (Storage Memory)
• Windows 10 64-bit Professional

Having a fast and stable Internet connection is going to be essential to your business, for access to the broking system and for general email and browsing. You should be looking to get a business grade connection of at least 20Mbps, but the faster the better.

Fibre to the Cabinet or Fibre to the Premises (FTTC and FTTP respectively) connections are available in 95% of the UK so you should have no problem getting this. If your provider says that the above connections are not available in your area, then you should speak to them about alternatives.

If you’re in a shared-office environment, ask the internal IT provider for an uncontended service of at least 20Mbps.

If you don’t currently have a domain name, we recommend that you register your new domain with 123-Reg. Please bear in mind that there are certain FCA rules about how your company name and, therefore, your domain name can be worded, so please contact us before making your purchase if you’re unsure.

You can go to https://www.123-reg.co.uk/domain-names/ to buy your preferred domain. Once this has been done and you’ve created an account with 123-Reg, we’ll need your chosen username and password for this site so we can set up the domain with the required Office 365.

If you already have a domain name, we’ll need the username or password for any control panel or portal you currently use to manage your domain name so that we can make the changes necessary to set you up with the required Office 365.

Alternatively, if you currently have a third party that manages your domain name for you, we’ll need contact details for them and also authorisation to make the changes. The changes will involve the creation of multiple DNS records which allow your domain to be used by Office 365. We can communicate these changes to any third party ahead of the actual changes being made so that they can be verified.

With an existing domain name, we’ll assume that you already have an email account. As part of the process of setting you up, we’ll need to migrate your existing email system to the Office 365 email account.

If required, we can import your existing emails, contacts and calendar appointments to the new system.

We require the use of Microsoft Office 365 for your email and office software to allow you to integrate seamlessly with the Eleven systems, but the setup depends on whether you already have a domain name and if you already have a Microsoft Office subscription.
The standard setup is for us to bill you for the number of licenses/mailboxes that you need and we host them on our system. The current monthly cost for each mailbox is £20 and this includes the following:

• Email mailbox
• Outlook
• Word
• Excel
• PowerPoint
• Publisher
• E-Mail archive
• Skype for Business
• SharePoint license
• Eleven portal access

If you already have Office 365 or have a requirement to be billed for your own licenses, please call the Helpdesk and we can guide you through the necessary steps.
Once your mailboxes are set up, we’ll remotely set them up on your PC, install the Microsoft Office suite and migrate any existing email.
Acturis will be charged at £150 (inc VAT) per month for the first licence, then £125 for the second and subsequent licences. There is also a one-off £1,800 branch setup fee.

Initially you may start out with just a mobile. However, from a perception point of view (to avoid the impression of a small one-man band), you might want to get a landline and telephone handset. We recommend the Eleven VOIP telephone system, which costs £75-£125 for the handset and a £10 monthly licence charge.

The benefit of this is that calls between you and us are totally free, plus all calls will be recorded, which is an FCA requirement. It’s also integrated into our recommended Office 365 system, which means we can see if you’re available and vice versa. You can also set up your own IVRs, use a local or non-geographical or existing number. And we can answer calls on your behalf.

We have an IT support team to maintain and develop Acturis for the network. Often the problems that may affect the use of a broking system will have a root cause somewhere else, in which case we find ourselves drawn into solving IT issues that are not really our own.

Many ARs have a local IT supplier and/or consultant who often tend to be a client, which is where we would ideally like the demarcation to rest, once we have decided that an issue is not Acturis related, which is not always altogether obvious. That said, we do frequently go beyond our remit and help to resolve problems that are not really our own.

The agencies are all held in Eleven’s name and there are around 200 in total. Most of the business that goes through Eleven gets placed with less than 50 of these agencies, but as new members have joined us, they have brought agencies that are important to their business and which they are keen to retain. We have mostly been happy to take these on until a better alternative is available at renewal.

Yes – this is very much the rationale behind Eleven and we’re here to bring smaller brokers together under a single banner and give them a bigger voice when it comes to dealing with insurers.

So far, we’ve managed to amalgamate lots of smaller brokers and their various premium incomes to create the footprint of a medium-sized broker. We want to build on that success and, as we get bigger, we’ll get better terms for our Appointed Representatives. The more brokers we have and the more business they do, the more we can push insurers to give better deals. We’re all in this together and our shared success will come from our shared strength.

The whole kit and caboodle. Our complete focus is on allowing you to service clients and so we take care of your IT, your administration and your compliance. We’re currently looking to offer Appointed Representatives a phone answering service as well.

We also realise that as some ARs grow and evolve, they want to take on more of this work for themselves and take a greater measure of control over their business. We have, therefore, flexed our model to give some ARs more of that freedom if they want it, under regulatory supervision.

Whether it’s via the Eleven extranet, the electronic newsletters, the annual conference or the multiple training days, there should be no reason for you to miss out on any changes that are happening in the market.

Absolutely! We don’t hide anything or keep other deals we have in place secret. If, for example, we’re in the frame for a substantial commission override, then we tend to split that with our ARs once it’s been earned.

You can only collect premiums from clients in Eleven’s name and no client money must ever hit your bank account as you’re not regulated to hold client money. Only we can hold client money. Where premiums are paid by cheque, it should be made out to Eleven and likewise premium finance arrangements should be administered by Eleven.

On the rare occasion a cheque is made out in your name, we have a letter of authority you can use that will allow you to pay the money directly into Eleven’s account without you having to bank it. There’s also an Eleven paying in book that will allow you to take cash and pay it directly into our account. In no circumstances should you take it upon yourself to hold client money.

Our invoices say 7 days but we recognise that some commercial clients can take up to 30 days to settle. However, once it gets to more than 45 days, we’ll give 7 days’ cancellation notice on the policy. We expect most private lines policies to be paid for at inception. We believe this to be a flexible but ultimately firm approach.

You’ll receive your commission on or about the 4th of the month following the month of debit and receipt of payment. You’ll be able to see the progress of everything via our MI Portal and the funds will be transferred straight into your bank account electronically.

If a risk is financed then there’s normally a further month’s delay before you receive your commission payment; likewise, Direct to Insurer (DTI) instalment schemes, at best.

Be aware, DTI commissions can take longer, depending on the insurer, some of whom are slower than others.

For individual cases, the Acturis system will tell you exactly how much has been paid.

For detailed, real-time amounts, refer to your MI Portal, which shows rolling monthly commission.